The Fall of the House of Æthelfrith

by H A CULLEY

  By the time they arrived at Caer Luel Eadwulf had completely forgotten his animosity towards Osfrid and the two were as close as any father and son, and a lot closer than most. The birlinn was waiting, as promised, and they set sail early the next morning.

  The sea was a dull grey, reflecting the brooding clouds above, and the waves had the kind of swell associated with the aftermath of a storm. The north-westerly wind had died down though and the birlinn carved its way forward under sail alone. The experience was exhilarating, especially for Eadwulf, as they slowly climbed up to the crest of one forty foot high wave, and then slid with increasing speed down the other side into the trough.

  Eadwulf squealed with pleasure every time it happened and, although the ship’s boys laughed at him, they enjoyed the experience just as much as he did, all except one.

  The boy sent up the mast as lookout wasn’t enjoying the ride nearly as much. His perch whipped about with the motion of the ship and he clung on for dear life every time the birlinn crashed down into the bottom of a trough. He had never been seasick in his life but the violent motion of the slender top of the mast was making him distinctly queasy.

  He was so absorbed in his own misery that he was late in spotting another sail. It appeared only when both ships were on top of a wave and disappeared when one or other were in a trough. It was therefore difficult to make out what she was at first, especially as she was heading in the opposite direction under oar power so he couldn’t see the device on her sail.

  ‘Ship in sight,’ he yelled down when she appeared on the crest of a wave for the second time and he was certain that his eyes weren’t playing tricks.

  ‘Where away?’ Osfrid called back.

  ‘To the west, about a mile from us and heading north east.’

  Osfrid was about to ask why the lookout hadn’t seen the other craft earlier but that could wait.

  ‘What sort of ship is she? Birlinn or knarr?’

  ‘Birlinn; a big one, perhaps eighteen oars a side.’

  That would mean a crew of perhaps fifty. Osfrid’s ship had twelve oars a side and, even with his gesith, a crew of only thirty six, excluding the four ships boys.

  ‘She’s changing course,’ the lookout called down.

  ‘What to?’

  ‘I can’t tell yet, she’s disappeared again; ah, there she is. She’s heading to intercept us and she’s raising her sail.’

  Osfrid thought rapidly. The other birlinn would be heavier but she had a bigger sail and a longer waterline so she’d be faster if she had a clean bottom. They were a mile away and the Cumbrian coast was at least twenty miles to the east of them. They would never make it before they were overhauled. On the other hand Rumsaa, the nearest port on Man, was slightly nearer at about fifteen miles. Not that it made much difference; the other ship would intercept them long before they could get there.

  ~~~

  Godwyna would have built their new hall of stone if she had her way but Osfrid had been opposed to the idea.

  ‘The few stone built churches I’ve been in are cold, even on hot days. The stone walls seem to suck the heat out of you,’ he’d told her. ‘No, stick to timber, but you can make the foundations and sub-wall out of stone if you wish. It’ll keep the bottom of the timber planks from rotting, as they do if they’re in contact with the earth.’

  She remembered seeing the ruins of a Roman villa when she was a child and the foundations, which were all that was left, had stayed in her mind. The stubby brick pillars that were laid out in a grid pattern were, her father had told her, to support the stone floor. What he didn’t know was that the purpose of the hypocaust, as it was known, was to enable hot air to circulate under the floor, keeping the villa warm in winter.

  However, she had liked the idea of a suspended floor to keep the damp from rising into your feet and she was determined to do something similar in her new hall. She had discussed the idea with Morcar, the reeve, but at first they came up against an obstacle. Brick making was unknown in Anglo-Saxon England. Instead they would have to use stone but those used for the top level would have to be cut so that every small pillar was level and at the same height. As there were no masons nearer than Jarrow, where the Abbot of St. Paul’s Monastery on the south bank was replacing the timber monastery church with a small stone one, she decided that she would have to go there. It would also give her the opportunity to visit her father.

  Leaving Swefred and Guthild in the charge of the baby’s wet nurse, she set off on a miserably wet day in June 689 with those members of her husband’s gesith who hadn’t accompanied him. She stayed with Conomultus on the first night and he, horrified at the thought of her travelling with just a maid and a dozen warriors, decided to accompany her the rest of the way.

  She was looking forward to seeing her father again. She realised that, at his age, this might be her last opportunity to do so. Little did she realise how right she was. When she arrived at Jarrow she found her father ill in bed.

  ‘I fear it’s not good news,’ Conomultus told her after he’d examined him. ‘He’s contracted the plague.’

  It transpired that he wasn’t alone, it ripped through the population of Jarrow and the two monasteries with more than half the inhabitants falling victim to it. Godwyna abandoned all idea of recruiting a mason and devoted herself to nursing her father. Conomultus joined the monks and nuns from the monastery in treating the sick and at first it seemed that he was lucky, but then he became feverish and complained of a severe headache and feeling weak. The next day he was shivering and took to his bed. Then swollen, painful black pustules appeared in his armpits and groin.

  The next day Benoc died in agony. Godwyna sobbed at his bedside until they came to take his body away. The monks were going to cast his body into the common grave with the rest of the victims before covering his body in quicklime, but she stopped them and ordered them to dig a grave in the family plot. They did as she asked but Benoc was buried there like the rest, in a winding sheet and covered in quicklime, rather than in a coffin.

  It would have been easy for her to allow herself to sink in misery but Godwyna was made of sterner stuff and, as soon as she heard about Conomultus, she went to nurse her husband’s uncle. He’d been taken to the infirmary in the Monastery of St. Peter on the north bank of the Tyne near a vill called Wearmouth. It was a little older than its twin monastery dedicated to St. Paul on the south bank near Jarrow, though both had only been established fairly recently.

  Conomultus was now fifty nine and she never thought that he’d survive. Over the past decade he’d lost weight and appeared frail but, despite his bouts of vomiting which weakened him further, there was a wiry strength to him. Her intention was to make his passing as comfortable as possible and she kept putting a sponge soaked in mead to his lips in the hope that the alcohol would deaden the pain. However, to her amazement, the pustules didn’t burst – the usual sign of imminent death – and on the fourth day they started to go down.

  His slow recovery coincided with a waning in the number of new cases and by early September two weeks had passed without any further victims. By then Conomultus was well enough to travel and he escorted Godwyna as far as Alnwic. She had wanted to stay at Jarrow to find out what would happen to the shire following her father’s death but felt that she had to return to Bebbanburg once she had managed to recruit a mason.

  Like the rest of the population, the workmen constructing the refectory at Jarrow had lost several of their number to the plague and the master mason was extremely unwilling to lose one more of his men. However, he had an apprentice who was always arguing with him and he eventually decided that he would be better off without him.

  His name was Thierry and he was eighteen. On the way back she learned that he’d been apprenticed to his uncle since the age of twelve. He should have completed his indenture a year ago but his uncle was unwilling to register him as a mason because he would then have to pay him more.

  ‘He died of the plague so officially I’m s
till an apprentice, but I know more about building in stone than that oaf of a master mason,’ he told Godwyna as they rode north.

  He’d shown her some of his carving and a few designs he’d been working on privately and she was impressed. She had raised Osfrid’s comments about stone buildings being cold but he explained that stone walls took time to warm up, but once they did they retained the heat, unlike timber walls. She decided to ignore her husband’s instructions and build the hall in stone after all.

  She had heard nothing about Osfrid’s mission to Alweo of Man whilst she was away but expected that there would be news of him and their son when she reached home. They had been gone for nearly four months now but Morcar shook his head when she had asked him and she began to worry.

  ~~~

  Osfrid woke to another miserably wet day in the hut he shared with Eadwulf, Uurad, Sigmund and Drefan. He poked his head out of the door and contemplated the lush green countryside surrounding the hill fort of Béal Feirste, meaning river mouth of the sandbanks. It was where he and his crew had been taken after they had surrendered to the Hibernian birlinn.

  Once he could distinguish the sail he had realised that the warship belonged to the Ulaidh, one of the two major nations that inhabited Ulster. The Ulaidh were the enemies of the Uí Néill, the other nation who fought for supremacy in Ulster. As he had fought the Uí Néill in the past he calculated that the Ulaidh would be friendly and he told his helmsman to heave to and wait for the other birlinn to come within hailing distance.

  ‘Who are you and why is a Northumbrian warship sailing in these waters?’

  ‘I’m Osfrid, Ealdorman of Bebbanburg. I’m on my way to see my sister’s husband Alweo of Man.’

  ‘Alweo is no friend of ours.’

  ‘Why? His men helped me to defeat Fínsnechta of the Uí Néill five years ago.’

  ‘His men raided Béal Feirste a year ago whilst we were away fighting the wretched Uí Néill and enslaved many of our women and children.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that but that was nothing to do with me. Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘Bécc Bairrche mac Blathmaic.’

  ‘I’ve heard of you. You are married to the daughter of Lethlobar mac Echach, a good friend of my father’s.’

  ‘I too know of you and your reputation. You are welcome to come with us to Béal Feirste where we will show you what Ulaidh hospitality is like.’

  ‘Thank you but, I need to continue on my way to Man.’

  ‘I told you, Man is our enemy. I insist you accompany us back to Ulster.’

  Three months later Osfrid and his men were still there. He had asked, even begged, to be allowed to leave many times but his request had always been politely declined by Bécc. He was beginning to give up hope of ever escaping when he heard that Lethlobar was on his way to visit the hill fort. His one chance of leaving lay with him.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Lethlobar asked him as they sat eating side by side in Bécc’s hall the following evening.

  ‘I was on my way to see Alweo and his wife, my sister Hereswith, when Bécc intercepted my birlinn. He insisted that we accompany him back to Béal Feirste and we’ve been here all summer.’

  Lethlobar looked past his daughter, who was sitting on his other side, to check that Bécc wasn’t listening but he was laughing uproariously at some joke that the man beside him had told.

  ‘We may have a gripe with Alweo but your father was ever my friend and we owe you a debt of gratitude for weakening the Uí Néill so much that they haven’t troubled us for years now.’

  ‘Can you help us?’

  ‘It’s difficult. Bécc is the local king and I’m merely his wife’s father. I have my own people, of course, but I have to tread a wary path. My father may have been King of the Ulaidh but I am not powerful enough to seize the throne – and I’m getting old. Bécc is likely to be the next King of the Ulaidh and I can’t afford to cross him.’

  ‘Is there no hope then?’

  ‘Leave it with me. He’s in love with my daughter. Perhaps she can persuade him. I suspect that you’ll have to promise not to go near Man though.’

  ‘Very probably the reason for my visit there has come to an end by now in any case.’

  ‘Very well. We’ll speak again tomorrow. Now tell me of my brother, Ruaidhrí. There was a time when I saw him as a rival, but I was never destined to succeed Eochaid.’

  ‘He’s dead. You didn’t know?’

  Lethlobar shook his head. ‘No, how? He was young.’

  ‘At the battle of the River Trent. He died in a futile attempt to save Ecgfrith’s brother, Ælfwine, when he was ambushed by the Mercians. He has a son though, called Eochaid. My uncle is his guardian.’

  ‘Named after our father. Well, well. One day I’d like to meet him.’

  ~~~

  Godwyna had almost given up hope of ever seeing Osfrid and their eldest child again. Aldfrith had warned her that he would have to presume that his ship had sunk and appoint another ealdorman. He had already given Jarrow to someone unrelated to her and, as he’d pointed out to her, he already had one shire – Alnwic – without a proper ealdorman. He couldn’t afford to have two like that on the east coast of Bernicia.

  Eochaid was now ten and so it would only be another half a dozen years before he could be confirmed as ealdorman. She just prayed that Conomultus would live that long. If he did he’d be sixty five, far older than most of his contemporaries.

  Swefred had just started to toddle and had become a great favourite of Theirry and his workmen who were building the new hall. She and the children had moved into a hut in the meantime as the footprint for the new building would be the same as the old. However, Theirry had proposed a radical design whereby he would put a second floor above the hall divided into three separate chambers – one for her and Osfrid, one for the children and their servants, and a guest room.

  The structure had just reached the top of the first storey when a lone horseman had been spotted riding as if the devil was on his heels down the last incline before the stronghold. Morcar told one of the sentries to sound the alarm and the garrison came piling out of the warriors’ hall and various huts occupied by those who were married, pulling on armour as they ran to their posts.

  ‘It’s Drefan,’ one of the youngsters with better eyesight than most called out as the galloping figure came closer.

  ‘Drefan!’ Godwyna exclaimed, her mind in a turmoil. Now at last she would have tidings of Osfrid and Eadwulf, but she didn’t know whether the news would be good or bad.

  ‘There’s a party of horsemen just on the skyline,’ the same youth called out as a dozen or so riders appeared behind Drefan.

  ‘We’re back!’ Drefan shouted out as he pulled his lathered horse to a halt in front of Godwyna. ‘Did you miss us?’ he asked with a huge grin on his face as he jumped down to land in front of her.

  She didn’t know whether to hug him in relief or hit him, though both would have been beneath her dignity.

  ‘You’re all safe?’

  ‘Yes, we’re all fine. We had a little sojourn in Ulster; never did reach Man,’ he explained. ‘But I’m sure Lord Osfrid will want to tell you all about it himself.’

  ~~~

  Aldfrith wasn’t at all pleased when he found out that Osfrid’s mission to see Alweo had been a failure, but the northern frontier seemed quiet for now so he soon forgot about it. He had other problems to worry him. His elderly nobles kept dying and, as it was only five years since the disaster at Dùn Nectain, most of the younger generation who would take over from them were still too young. Even those who had reached sixteen, and were therefore counted as adults, lacked any experience.

  It wasn’t his only concern though.

  ‘It’s time you married, Cyning,’ Wilfrid kept saying. ‘You’re now fifty seven and, even if you had a son soon, he would need time to grow to maturity before he could succeed you.’

  Reminding Aldfrith of his mortality did little to endear Wilfrid to him. H
e was already trying the king’s patience with his continual importunity about Ripon and Hexham. He didn’t seem to be able to take no for an answer and one day, when yet again he referred to the Pope’s letter reinstating him as abbot of both monasteries, Aldfrith’s patience snapped.

  ‘You do nothing but nag me, Wilfrid. You are far too grand for a humble priest; the way you dress and conduct yourself and the wealth you ostentatiously display, anyone would think you were the king, not I.’

  ‘Cyning, have I not served you faithfully?’

  ‘You serve no one but you own grasping self, Wilfrid, and I’m sick of it and sick of you. I thought that you were a scholar, someone on the same intellectual plane as me, but that sole virtue pales into insignificance when compared to your multitude of faults.’

  ‘Aldfrith, I must protest…’

  ‘Protest all you like, just not here. Get out. I’ve had enough of you to last me the rest of my lifetime, even one as short as mine is likely to be, as you so kindly pointed out. You have a week to put your affairs in order, after that you had better be beyond the borders of Northumbria or you will find yourself in the most unpleasant cell I can find. Now go, go.’

  Wilfrid looked as if someone had slapped him in the face with a wet fish, but one look at the king’s face convinced him that Aldfrith meant every word. Six days later he entered Mercia with as much of his wealth as he could carry in two carts, which were all Aldfrith would allow him. A week after that Bosa returned as Bishop of Eoforwīc.

  Chapter Fifteen – The Battle for Cumbria

  693 – 696